Here Are Five Quick Ways To Speed Up Your Guitar Playing

5 Ways To Speed Up Your Guitar Playing & Become A Killer Lead Guitarist By Developing A Detailed Mental Map Of The Fretboard

One of the most underrated ways to make playing fast and flowing guitar solos easy is to improve your fretboard visualization. This makes it easier to play guitar solos with speed and creativity because:

It gives you more time to think while soloing (because you can visualize what comes next)
It makes it easier to navigate the entire fretboard, so you don’t become lost or fall back into repeating the same patterns over and over
It makes it easier to play with more expressive creativity by integrating different aspects of your playing together, such as scale patterns, arpeggios or sequences that move from one position to the next

Now you know why fretboard visualization is critical for playing killer lead guitar solos and licks. Use these tips to develop this skill and play solos that kick ass:

Tip #1: Never Get Lost Again While Soloing By Mapping Out The Modes For Scales

Playing guitar solos with speed is easy when you can visualize scale patterns all over the fretboard before you play a single note. There are many ways to train yourself to do this. Here are several ideas to get you started, add them into your guitar practice schedule based on their priority with your current goals:

[Note: Not sure how to prioritize musical goals? Work together with an experienced guitar teacher to learn this and become a killer player in less time.]

There are tons of modes and scale patterns that exist (too many for just one article). However, a great place to start is to learn the 7 common modes starting from one note.

For example, this tab shows three modes starting from fret 7 (“E”): E Major, E Dorian and E Phrygian.

The other remaining modes are: Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian (Natural Minor) and Locrian.

Learn these patterns from a single position to get used to playing with them. Then, the patterns can be moved anywhere on the fretboard.

Expand across the fretboard to gain more fretboard visualization by learning how to connect modes together that contain the same notes (i.e modes of the same parent scale).

Tip #2: Give Yourself More Musically Expressive Options By Mapping Out The Inversions Of Arpeggios

Understanding how to play arpeggios using different inversions (inversion = played with different notes of the chord as the lowest note) helps you play more creatively without using any different notes.

This also makes it easier to move up and down the fretboard with speed that flows like an unstoppable tidal wave!.

See what it is like for yourself by playing this sweep picking pattern that goes through 3 inversions up the neck:

Tip #3: Develop Effortless Creativity By Learning How To Connect Scales & Arpeggios

Connecting scales with arpeggios is the beginning step for transforming them from mere “patterns of notes” into smooth and flowing musical phrases. This is one major way to make your guitar soloing feel more melodic.

Practice the notes below by slowing integrating the notes of the E minor scale into the Em7 and Em 1^st inversion arpeggios.

Improvise by limiting yourself to using only the notes of these three patterns for several minutes. By doing this, you find that arpeggios and scales sound amazing when integrated together (and it’s not at all hard to do this).

Tip #4: Develop Seamless Lead Guitar Playing By Mastering Patterns In Different Positions

Don’t rely on a specific starting point every time you play a certain scale or arpeggio.

For example: Always beginning an A minor scale on the 5^th fret of the low E string.

Your goal for playing killer guitar solos at any speed is to be comfortable starting from anywhere on the fretboard.

This tab shows many different positions from which you could begin an A minor scale:

Note: This is just the beginning! The tab above doesn’t include the many modal patterns that use the same notes as A minor.

Challenge yourself to expand outside of your comfort zone by becoming comfortable playing in any position (high or low on the fretboard), starting licks on different strings and integrating arpeggios/scales together as discussed above.

Practice starting on different scale degrees by improvising and choosing specific notes to start on. For instance: “5^th degree of A minor” or “3^rd degree of E Phrygian”.

Tip #5: Hear How Notes Sound Before You Play Them By Improving Your Ear

It’s easy to want to shred through as many notes as possible while learning how to speed up your guitar playing. However, don’t neglect training your ability to create specific emotions with the notes you play. This is critical for playing memorable lead guitar that sounds pro.

Here are just a few ideas for how to get started with this:

Learning the note names of the frets in scale/arpeggio patterns and how they feel during solos/over chords
Slowly play individual notes over a drone (ex: The “A” note over and over) to hear how they feel
Solo over a single chord and pay attention to how certain notes feel over it
Solo over multiple chords, starting with just two and pay attention to how certain notes feel over it
Focus on playing a specific note and using fast runs or techniques to embellish it

Now you know many ways to practice guitar to speed up your playing and improve your soloing creativity. Learn how to double your current guitar speed while practicing less with this shred guitar resource.